Category: Joseph Finder (2)

December 12, 2008

Joseph Finder: From thrillers to advertising

> Posted by Oline Cogdill on December 12, 2008 06:21 AM

Celebrities -- from Frank Sinatra to Britney Spears -- often pop up in advertising hawking anything from automobiles to soda.

So I have to say I was more than a little pleased when drooling over the handbags, wallets and writing gear in my latest Levenger catalog to find thriller author Joseph Finder used in one of the ads. (It's on page 23 and includes a nifty quote from Finder.)

It's about time Madison Avenue realized that the power of the written word can also be used to sell more than just books.

And I don't mean that to come off as snide, though I can imagine it might seem that way.

I am serious when I say seeing an author in an ad gives me hope that books are as mainstream as a diet cola and that people -- at least those who shop Levenger -- would recognize an author.

Finder's novels have made my best of list more than once. He writes about business and before your eyes glaze over, let me add that his novels are as full of suspense, clandestine meetings, spies and backstabbing as any political thriller. Anyone who follows the news about Wall Street, the automakers and other corporations knows just how ruthless big business can be.

Finder's novels include Power Play and High Crimes; Levenger's ad call him "one smart writer who's been called 'the CEO of Suspense.' His books are quite appealing and his quote makes a good pitch for the item he's shown with.

Finder, whose latest novel Power Play recently came out in paperback and is a New York Times best-seller, list, writes some of the best "business-oriented" thrillers. And if the phrase business thriller makes your eyes glaze over, then you should defnitely try his novels.

Finder specializes in action-packed plots with characters you can care about. And anyone who has worked in an office knows how cut-throat an office can be. It's isn't all Michael Scot, Pam and Jim and Dwight.

Finder said in an e-mail that he has auctioned off character names for charity a number of times and wishes he could impose just one condition:

"That the character’s name is subject to approval by the author. Because I’ve gotten stuck with a few tough ones: names I couldn’t pronounce, for instance, or names that just sounded wrong for one reason or another. And what am I going to do -- tell a mom that I don’t like the sound of her son’s name, so I don’t want to use it in my novel? I don’t think so," Finder wrote.

This happened to him not too long ago when he agreed to auction a character name to raise funds for the writer’s organization PEN New England, which does a lot of good work for underprivileged kids and literacy.

The winner was a friend of his, Chris Gabrieli, who ran for governor of Massachusetts a few years ago but lost.

"Chris bid on the character name not for himself but as a birthday gift for his mother-in-law, a woman named Smoki Bacon," Finder wrote. "Smoki (whom I’ve known for years) is a Boston society doyenne and TV host with one of the all-time great names. So I called Smoki . . . and told her that she was going to appear in my new book as . . . a floozy."

Finder was a bit concerned, to say the least, that she might object, "given her prominence on the Boston social scene."

But there was no problem.

Writes Finder: "Smoki said, "Oh, that’s fine. As long as you don’t have me selling my body. Not at my age. That would destroy your credibility."